Art Robinson didn't really mean those things. Did he?

You have to say this for Art Robinson, the GOP candidate running against U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio in southwest Oregon:

He never denies that he said it.

Over the last 15 years or so, Robinson, who runs his own scientific research center and newsletter from a compound outside Cave Junction, has piled up a series of statements that range from jaw-dropping to "Were you running a fever that day?"

But now, he won't deny that he repeatedly seemed to call for abolishing public schools, or for spreading nuclear waste in the oceans, or for a Social Security policy based on a mathematical impossibility that should be clear to a research scientist. He just explains that he said those things a while ago, or that when he said them he didn't know that he'd ever be running for public office, or that he was talking to an excited crowd and got excited himself.

It's an unnerving set of positions but a fascinating set of explanations.

About his statements on public schools, he complains, "They're pretty old. One is from a year ago, but I was quoting myself."

He agrees he told a group of Maine Republican legislators that public schools should be abolished, but, "Every so often, you get worked up, and speak with hyperbole. Had I known I would ever run for office, I'd have said it differently."

Well, we've all been there.

Of course, not all of us have written in our newsletter, "Public education (tax-financed socialism) has become the most widespread and devastating form of child abuse and racism in the United States. Moreover, people who have been cut off at the knees by public education are so mentally handicapped that they cannot be responsible custodians of the energy technology base or other advanced accomplishments of our civilization ... . Can this problem be corrected? Yes. Can it be corrected by improving the public schools? No -- only by abolishing them."

And Robinson's promotion for his home-schooling curriculum urges, "Teach your children to teach themselves and to acquire superior knowledge as did many of America's most outstanding citizens in the days before socialism in education."

Now, says Robinson, he doesn't want to close public schools, just get the federal government out of them -- although the feds should keep sending money, just without any strings. If that happened, he says, schools would quickly get much better, and home schooling would vanish.

As a scientist, he's also been concerned with making radioactive waste go away. Reported The Register-Guard of Eugene, "An advocate of nuclear energy, he has suggested in the monthly newsletter he writes and edits that nuclear waste can be disposed of by diluting it and adding it into the foundations and insulation of homes, or that it might be diluted and sprinkled over the ocean, or over land."

But Robinson is furious at DeFazio for saying Robinson wants to dump radioactive waste into the ocean, complaining, "It is false in substance. It is another falsehood of omission, but the omitted information requires explanation beyond political sound bites."

Asked what's false, Robinson says, "The picture he paints is that I'm going to take spent fuel rods, take them down to the pier and dump them off."

So no fuel rods off the pier -- just distributing the waste gently and letting it dissolve in the ocean.

But besides, says Robinson, "It's politically impossible. People will never be able to understand it."

It's also a little hard to understand his position on Social Security, on which his campaign website says, "It may be wise to make future participation voluntary." On the other hand, the site calls for keeping all commitments to current members, "including a large increase in payments to compensate for the ravages of inflation, which have been largely ignored."

There are people who believe in making Social Security voluntary, and people who believe in a huge increase in payments, but they're not usually the same people.

If less money comes in because Social Security is voluntary, says Robinson, the government would just have to make up the difference. Asked how it would come up with the money, he explains, "You pay your power bill before you go to McDonald's."

Besides, "This year, the American people paid more than enough to restore Social Security to rescue the banks instead."

Well, not exactly. The bank bailout was around $700 billion, with most of it being paid back, expected to end up costing around $100 billion. Social Security is projected to run short in the trillions, even before paying into the system goes voluntary and payments going out get a large increase.

Everybody, over time, has said things he wishes he hadn't said, or gotten carried away, or said things that other people just couldn't understand.

But from the things Art Robinson has said, it seems something's going to get thrown off the pier.